“Blasphemy to secular humanism.” Is progress a myth? – John Gray

One of the major themes of John Gray’s writing has been the deconstruction of myths in human society and thinking. His ideas are what you may call blasphemy to the secular humanist. Are devoted Secular Humanists no more immune to the allure of myth creation in their systems of thought than the same theists that they so righteously criticise? In his latest book, “The Silence of Animals” he focus heavily on making the argument that although growth in scientific knowledge is cumulative, gains in the knowledge of ethics is cyclical.

What are your thoughts?

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Russell Brand, after taking on Jeremy Paxman has now caused a new stir on Channel 4 in the UK after demolishing Jon Snow with his views on Drugs, Environment and the Establishment. On the question of if he wanted revolution Russell Brand said,

“You know I do. That’s the reason I am here. First of all I want a revolution in the way we regard addiction as a disease, the way we legislate it, the way we treat drug addicts but further than that I want it to address global inequality around economics and we also need to find some suitable ecological solutions around energy.”

Steve Bradbury! Winner of the 2002, 1000m Short Track Speed Skating event at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympic Games. The whole world remembers Steve Bradbury as one of the luckiest athletes in the world because of his unlikely win over a faster but fallen group of Speed Skaters. USA Today said

“The first winter gold medal in the history of Australia fell out of the sky like a bagged goose. He looked like the tortoise behind four hares”

But a little investigation will tell you that he was actually quite a contender. He had both the mind and the skills to have been competitive at different points in his career without the assistance of lady luck. He suffered two near death crashes in his career that he made come backs from and his record outside the one miraculous win he is famous for was really quite tidy.

Olympics Gold – 2002 Salt Lake City 1000m
Olympics Bronze – 1994 Lillehammer 5000m Relay
World Championships Gold – 1991 Sydney 5000 m relay
World Championships Silver – 1994 Guildford 5000 m relay
World Championships Bronze – 1993 Beijing 5000 m relay

A little flash back

From the very beginning I want to clarify that there is not any law in Russia, which prohibits people from being gay or lesbian. The full name of the sensational “anti-gay law” is “The prohibition of propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations to minors” (including pedophilia), which of course sounds disrespectful for gay couples all over the world. Moreover, the essence of the law is rather vague and it does not contain certain definitions. It only says that for such propaganda (neutral distribution of information of that kind is not an administrative offense) guilty people must be fined.

However, everything is not as terrible as it is shown by the international mass media. Each country, sooner or later is faced with confronting issues concerning the rights of sexual minorities. As with many issues, they must be solved by taking into account the national mentality of the country. In this case Russia is not an exception.

With the emergence of statehood in Russia, the Orthodox Church and the institution of family played a fundamental role in the formation of general politics. To the present moment this situation has not changed much. These deeply conservative moral values still sit firmly in people’s minds (especially in the minds of people over 50) and unfortunately cannot be fixed in a flash. As with other countries that have “almost succeeded” in solving this, Russia needs time for reaching an understanding with people of untraditional sexual orientation.

I want to highlight that nobody here in Russia is aimed to kill gays or make their lives a living hell. Nevertheless, most of the people are not ready for the radical changes that took place in Europe or the USA because of the reasons mentioned above. The ruling party passes such bills but doesn’t take into account that Russians by nature are simply not interested in the personal lives of strangers at all. The Russian government makes with their own hands the advertisement for gays such as what happened with the Pussy Riot affair. For simple people it seems that the government simply doesn’t know what to do. That’s why the ru-net or “Russian Internet” is full of sarcastic jokes towards our politics.

It is no wonder that foreign journalists are also bothered by this problem and always ready to exaggerate the real attitude of Russians towards gays, calling it completely homophobic and/or cruel.

Young generations, especially in Central Russia, are more tolerant to people of nontraditional sexual orientation. They are even ready to speak up or at least support gays and lesbians in the moral debate. I, personally, (and most of my friends) don’t see any reason to blame individuals for their choices of whom they love.

The hatred between the Russian government and the foreign media only worsen the situation by aggravating and spoiling relations between nations. Russia, as the rest of the world doesn’t need a popularization of gays, it also believes in everyone’s equity. I want to mention again that Russian people simply need time to accept each other with all their differences. Nobody here in their right mind wants to hurt or kill one another based on their own personal choices.

In the end, I just want to wish to gay people of Russia patience, strength and bravery.

[dropcap size=big]S[/dropcap]apere Aude, for Kant, is a concept that defines the courage of citizens who engage into public discourse so as to improve governance, for the good of both people and state. Kant encourages the state leader to enhance people’s critical judgment, thus bring the society to enlightenment. Hence, critical analysis about state management of public funds is not to be perceived as an attack against a country or its population, rather the opposite. In the world of modern and pluralist democracies, questions about the management of state funds are welcomed and debated in the mainstream media. By its behavior, the media itself constitutes a level-test of a nations political enlightenment. Is Journalism the “guard-dog” of a democracy, or does it quench disturbing questions to protect the establishment and its elites? When the sun shines, isn’t also its role to question about approaching black clouds?

My quest about the Norwegian socio-economic landscape was initiated by my contribution to the public debate in Israel and related to the creation and use of a new “Gas Fund”. Ironically, my basic assumption actually perceived the Norwegian model as a positive reference, until my research led me to discover its flaws. Although the “Jerusalem Post” article was translated and published by the Dagen, I felt it my duty as a Political scientist to offer the Norwegian people, via its mainstream and online media, an analysis exclusively focused on Norway. Unfortunately, despite some consideration by local mainstream media, various pretexts were invoked not to publish the piece; in this period of the 2013 electoral campaign, parts of my economic analysis were maybe getting to close to those of the Progress Party. Feeling “blocked” in Norway, I was grateful to the Washington Times that it accepted to bring my message to the Norwegian people.

My analysis is axed around two parts. The second part, on which I will not focus today, deals with the risks of speculation related to the foreign investments of the Oil Fund, analyzed by some brilliant economists as unstable and dangerous; the dependence of the economy on the oil industry, and the exposure to a drop in oil demand; the decline of the traditional industries, their competitiveness and state protectionism. But it is the first part of this article, which has mainly created opposition waves, with the mention of a taboo-topic.

The Foreign Debt factor in my analysis is of primordial importance. Without changing the essence of the discourse – but adjusting my figures from August to December 2013 – I claim that the fund value being US$825 billion, and Norway’s external debt US$ 719 billion, it leaves only a difference of US$ 106 billion available for the future. The Central Bank buzz about Norway being a creditor state is providing a false sense of security to the people and demands more transparency. More specifically, the public (non-oil Fund) assets’ current value is not relevant to Norwegians in time of crisis. For example, if a real-estate bubble-crisis was to occur, with the citizens unable to pay back their loans, would the Ministry of Finance guarantee the private and toxic loans with public assets? Can the government compensate the 4,500 bankruptcies of 2013 by selling public assets? Of course, not! Even in the improbable scenario of having public assets as a guarantee against the loss of individuals or private business, the current price of those assets would be significantly devaluated in time of crisis. To illustrate the irrelevance of public assets in time of crisis, look at Greece’s difficulty to sell – at a reasonable price – their abundant public assets. Even when they can get some funds against specific assets, it does not benefit the simple citizens. In other words, in time of crisis, “public assets” cannot be assessed with their pre-crisis value, and certainly are not of any use to the “public”.

Unfair, you will say, as I use public assets sales, including real-estate, in a scenario of real-estate bubble-crisis. OK, then, let’s go to my original article and project the effects of a decrease in the demand for oil, leading the Brent barrel price value to US$80, for instance. The GDP, concentrated on oil industries, will collapse, and due to a high level of public sector spending, the public debt to GDP, today at the impressive ratio of 30%, will significantly increase. Which public assets would the Ministry of Finance sell to avoid a spiralling of the public debt, leading to an increase of the foreign debt itself? Again here, even if some assets might be sold, it would be at a devaluated price from its current value.

More questions should be asked by the nation to its administration about the Oil Fund or as it is called in Norway the  “Government Pension Fund” management and the foreign debt. For instance, how much percent of the Oil Fund is used as a security for both loans taken and provided abroad, and aren’t they building a pyramidal edifice like the “Icelandic model” which brought Iceland to its knees in 2008, with repercussions felt far beyond its borders? What about the real public debt and its projected evolution in the semi-mixed economic Norwegian model? What about the conflicts of interest due to the engagement of governmental ministers with public corporations or private industries? Last, but not least, what about the recent IMF reports requiring a recapitalization of the banks, and its decision to place the Norwegian financial market under “surveillance”?

The New Government inherited the current economic situation after years of a management, partly reminding, in my eyes, the successive policies of the Greek administrations which had been selling virtual sweets to their people till the country finally collapsed into the rift of the Great Crisis. We are all aware of the dramatic situation imposed to the Greek people after years of over-confident statements and endemic statistical methodologies. The newly-elected Norwegian administration should generate and encourage a culture of debate, as the quicker we can identify problematic issues, the more efficiently we can treat them – with minimum pain to the nation. Decreasing the probability of a dark scenario to occur is still technically relatively easy, with the obvious priority to prevent both inflation and unemployment. Politically speaking, it also makes sense for the Conservative and the Progress Parties to explain clearly the socio-economic and financial situation of the country, which they  redeemed from the previous governments. They might have to “operate and cure”, but this doesn’t make them responsible for the sickness inherited from their predecessors.

The Lack Of Political Courage to debate those issues would be, for me, almost more problematic than the projected scenario of a pessimistic macro-economic analysis itself. Brilliant economists keep being rebutted by Norway: Nobel Prize lareate Paul Krugman on the risk of a real estate bubble, Professor Michael Hudson on the potential for Oil Fund loses and Sony Kapoor on the funds management… Playing the ostrich doesn’t chase the problems; state promises that US$ 825 billion are kept in the Oil Fund for the future generations is untrue. Njord’s treasure net value is around US$ 106 billion– today.

SAPERE AUDE Prime Minister! In your power to bring the people, the media and the youth transparency against the system opacity, brightness against anesthetic fog. To remedy and act for the country they love, the Norwegians need to question, debate and criticize. Without fear. With freedom.